Special Report: The final days and deals of Aubrey McClendon (Energy CEO)

[Lodestar]

Some background news if you missed it:
Energy CEO McClendon dies in Oklahoma car crash, a day after indictment
http://www.reuters.com/article/chesapeake-energy-mcclendon-idUSL2N16A20G

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The night before Aubrey McClendon died, the oil-and-gas pioneer was expected at a private dinner here with potential business partners. Among them: Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico.

Around sunset, the group gathered in a wood-paneled dining room at the exclusive Beacon Club. A waiter brought plates of sea bass and lamb. Three bottles from McClendon’s wine collection were opened, including a 2010 Napa Valley red bearing the logo of his business, American Energy Partners.

But McClendon, who reveled in his reputation as the life of the party, never showed, said four people who were there.

The group soon learned why. U.S. prosecutors had just announced McClendon’s indictment for allegedly conspiring with a competitor to suppress land prices by rigging bids while leading his former company, Chesapeake Energy. People at the dinner said McClendon sent an emissary and his regrets. Fox and others signed the empty wine bottles, intending to present them to McClendon the next day.

They never had the chance.
McClendon died the following morning, March 2, when his car crashed at high speed into an overpass wall along a two-lane road here. The accident remains under investigation.

The sudden end to his lavish and leveraged life came as McClendon, 56, confronted challenges more consequential than any he had faced before. He’d been forced to part with oil and gas-well interests, one of his best sources of cash. His biggest investor was abandoning him. He had just agreed to settle a legal claim that chipped at his reputation. And now, with the indictment, a protracted legal battle for his personal freedom loomed.
cont'd
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-aubrey-mcclendon-specialreport-idUSKCN0WD27N

[CBGLuthier]

1. I lived just a few blocks from Chesapeake. They had a huge impact on the real estate of OKC.

Some of it positive, some of it not so. They were quite ruthless in their acquisition of property. Thy ran a few restaurants out of business in order to gain the land. I always felt they were on the edge of being Enron like in their dealings.

[Lodestar]

4. Yes, like Enron (according to this Rolling Stone article from a few years back)

Fracking, it turns out, is about producing cheap energy the same way the mortgage crisis was about helping realize the dreams of middle-class homeowners. For Chesapeake, the primary profit in fracking comes not from selling the gas itself, but from buying and flipping the land that contains the gas. The company is now the largest leaseholder in the United States, owning the drilling rights to some 15 million acres – an area more than twice the size of Maryland. McClendon has financed this land grab with junk bonds and complex partnerships and future production deals, creating a highly leveraged, deeply indebted company that has more in common with Enron than ExxonMobil. As McClendon put it in a conference call with Wall Street analysts a few years ago, "I can assure you that buying leases for x and selling them for 5x or 10x is a lot more profitable than trying to produce gas at $5 or $6 per million cubic feet."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-big-fracking-bubble-the-scam-behind-the-gas-boom-20120301#ixzz42hYSiHJl
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

And similar too in that Enron's Ken Lay also suddenly 'died' just prior to facing some serious jail time.

[Hoppy]

2. --- kind enough to save taxpayers the cost of a trial and incarceration.

[Lodestar]

3. The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind Aubrey McClendon's Gas Boom

An article from 2012 by Rolling Stone:

It’s not only toxic – it’s driven by a right-wing billionaire who profits more from flipping land than drilling for gas

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-big-fracking-bubble-the-scam-behind-the-gas-boom-20120301#ixzz42hVnatiX
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook